Down-feather products are popular due to the preferred warm keeping and ventilation abilities. However the supply of down-feathers becomes less and thus the price is increased. Thereby to add fibers into the down-feathers has become a trend under the consideration of cost.
In the prior art, down-feathers are not suitable to be mixed with fibers because they will separate easily. Furthermore, they will collect to form a plurality of collection blocks if the mixing material is washed. Thereby the down-feathers and fibers are not suitable to be mixed as fillers.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,232,249, a special process is disclosed for mixing down-feathers and fibers. In that, short fibers will be hooked to the down-feathers. In the process, short fibers are curled. The process includes the steps of mixing short fibers with down-feathers by agitation in a chamber and surface activator as a soften agent is added therein so that the short fibers are curled; and then dewatering and drying the fibers and thermally setting the mixing material.
In this process, the down-feathers and the fibers can be uniformly mixed. However in the process, the down-feathers and the fibers must be mixed firstly and soften agent is added therein. Then dewatering, drying and thermal setting process are performed. The process is complicated and the cost is high.